On Saturday evening (12.2.) at the Hebbel am Ufer Theatre, Festival Director Dieter Kosslick opened the Berlinale Talent Campus 2011 together with the heads of the Campus Christine Tröstrum and Matthijs Wouter Knol as well as with Medienboard CEO Kirsten Niehuus. Directly afterwards, the roughly 600 guests witnessed the world premiere of the five Berlin Today Award 2011 nominated short films inspired by the theme “Leaving the Familiar Sector”, realised with support from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

Berlin Today Award 2011: Award Ceremony during Dine & Shine

On Sunday evening (13.2.), the Berlin Today Award was awarded during the festive “Dine & Shine Talents Rendezvous” at ewerk. After a welcome from Dr. Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel, department head of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), Aviva Silver, head of the MEDIA programme, and Festival Director Dieter Kosslick, the award was handed to the winner of the short film competition by Kirsten Niehuus and the three jurors, actress Dorka Gryllus, producer Peter Rommel and director Hannes Stöhr. The eighth Berlin Today Award goes to Kyoko Miyake from Japan for her documentary Hackney Lullabies, created and shot in the London neighbourhood of Hackney. The short film portrays young immigrant mothers in Britain and how they transmit a sense of home to their children through lullabies. “With Hackney Lullabies, Japanese director Kyoko Miyake offers a sensitive, funny, warm-hearted and interesting contribution to the immigration debate in times of globalisation. The jury was crying and singing lullabies as they left the meeting,” according to the jury’s statement. Hackney Lullabies was produced by Katrin Springer and Volker Ullrich (Filmkantine) in Berlin. There will be a screening of the Berlin Today Award short films for the public on Sunday (20.2.) at 5:30 pm in Colosseum.

The award ceremony also marks the beginning of a new competition round: following the Berlinale 2011, the five Berlin Today Award 2012 finalists will be announced. They will make short films on the theme of “Every Step You Take”.

More than 150 international experts at the Berlinale Talent Campus #9

Until Thursday, February 17, about 150 internationally successful filmmakers and Berlinale guests are expected to join the many public events taking place throughout the three Hebbel am Ufer Theatre buildings. The Campus experts include Harry Belafonte and Wim Wenders on Monday (14.2.), Andres Veiel, Heddy Honigmann, István Szabó, Ralph Fiennes, Ed Lachman, Alex McDowell and Shekhar Kapur on Tuesday (15.2.), and Claudia Llosa, Abderrahmane Sissako and Barbara Hammer on Wednesday (16.2.). On the last day, the Berlinale Talent Campus will welcome Paul Schrader and Rafi Pitts, amongst others, and close the event with the presentation and award ceremony of the Score Competition in the presence of composer and mentor Michael Nyman, 5:30 pm in HAU1.

Press Office

February 13, 2011

The Berlinale Talent Campus is an initiative of the Berlin International Film Festival, a business division of the Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin GmbH, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media upon a decision of the German Bundestag, in co-operation with MEDIA - Training programme of the European Union and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.